Project of Sociology

Fighting terrorism with education

Submitted to;
Hazir Ullah
Department of Sociology
International Islamic University
Isalmabad

Submitted by;
M Abdullah
BS P & IR 3rd Semester
International Islamic University
Islamabad
Fighting Terrorism with Education:
In many undeveloped Muslim countries education is not widely available to all citizens. Many of the
boys and young men in these countries get their education in small religious schools called madrasas that
teach a strict fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law to their students. Militant Islamic extremists use
these schools as a vehicle for recruiting potential terrorists.
The citizens in these countries have shown that they are open to new schools being built with
funding and assistance provided by western nations. These schools encourage women to
participate and teach a well rounded curriculum free of fundamentalist teachings. The resulting
improvement in literacy and understanding of the outside world creates a more moderate point of
view, and reduces poverty and overpopulation.
Every year hundreds of wealthy Westerners flock to the Himalayan Mountains in Asia hoping to
conquer some of the World's most challenging peaks. Most will hire local villagers to guide them
to the summit and to carry their gear along the way. These villagers do the lion's share of the
work for what usually amounts to pennies.
In 1993 American climber Greg Mortonsen decided to attempt to summit the notorious K2 in
Pakistan, one of the World's highest and most dangerous peaks. While Mortonsen did not make it
to the summit he did learn a great deal about living conditions in this wild and remote region.
Mortonsen had become separated from his group on the descent and ended up stumbling down
the mountain exhausted and disoriented, and without shelter, food or water. Fortunately, he
managed to wander into a tiny mountain village where he was taken care of by the locals until he
could regain his strength. As he recovered from his climb he was shocked to see the rampant
poverty and high infant mortality rates (over 30%) common to villages in this area.
When he realized that literacy had only been achieved by less than 3% of the inhabitants
Mortonsen saw how he could most effectively give back to the people who had been so kind to
him in his hour of need. Mortonsen felt that education was the key to lowering poverty, reducing
infant mortality, and slowing birth rates. He began raising money to help build schools. One of
his requirements for building a new school was that it had to allow women to attend. Mortonsen
realized that educating the women was the key to making progress on poverty, infant mortality,
and high birth rates.
Mortonsen was on to something. Studies have shown that in countries where women have
received increased education there are consistent results that improve the quality of life in that
country. Poverty rates and infant mortality drop substantially as education increases. Economies
grow and birthrates drop as more women enter the workforce. Mortonsen understood that
poverty and ignorance are the motivating social factors that fuel religious extremism. If he could
reduce ignorance and poverty though education; especially education for women, then he could
reduce the incentive for the religious extremism that is used to recruit terrorists.
When Mortonsen first began raising money he did not get much of a response from the famous
and wealthy people he attempted to contact. His best response came from American school
children. A group of elementary kids in Wisconsin raised over $600 in pennies to help support
his cause. This got the attention of adults who began taking Greg's mission more seriously, and
was the beginning of a program called Pennies for Peace. Today, Pennies for Peace educates
American school children about life in other countries and shows them how the pennies they
 raise can help to make the world a better place for children in other countries. The money these
children raise is sent directly to Pakistan and Afghanistan for the building of schools and athletic
facilities.
The mission of the Central Asia Institute is: To promote and provide community-based education
and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Central Asia. This year
schools built by Greg Mortonsen and the CAI educated over 20,000 children in the 55 schools
that have been built in the last 12 years. Nearly 50% of these students are girls. CAI makes sure
than women are afforded access to this education by requiring that the enrollment of girls be
increased by 10% each year. The curriculum at CAI schools is focused on math, science and
languages. Students from CAI schools averaged 72% on exams to qualify for middle school last
year. In comparison the national average in Pakistan is less than 45%. In addition to building
schools CAI has also developed over 15 water projects and built four women's vocational
centers.
All too frequently in these regions the only source of aid and support for these villagers comes from
Taliban militants or extremist groups funded by money from Saudi Arabia. These groups take full
advantage of this dependency to suppress rights for women and herd young men and boys into the
madrassas when they can be indoctrinated with extreme fundamentalist ideology, and later by
recruited for terrorism. The education provided by the CAI schools offers an alternative to this path,
and the opportunity to improve life in these villages without becoming beholden to warlords and
religious extremists.
When Mortonsen first began his mission to provide education and assistance to the folks in
remote Pakistan and Afghanistan he did not enjoy much support back at home. Even more
daunting was the threat posed by the local tribal chieftains and clergy. Several times Mortonsen
nearly gave his life for his mission when fatwas were issued for his death by angry mullahs
suspicious that he was a spy for the US government. Mortonsen once survived an armed
kidnapping by escaping and hiding under a pile of animal carcasses as they were being
transported out of town. Even in the face of danger Mortonsen persisted and continued building
schools and relationships until his detractors were convinced of the value of his contributions.
Apparently, results speak loudly in these impoverished regions. Saeed Abbas Risvi, the senior
Shiite spiritual leader in Pakistan, was so impressed by Mortonsen's work that he approached the
Supreme Council of Ayatollahs in Iran and managed to obtain a very rare letter of
recommendation for Mortonsen to help protect him from the local mullahs and clergy. As news
of his success traveled home Mortonsen earned the respect of some prominent members of
Congress who are now in support of the work of the Central Asia Institute.
There are many lessons to be learned from the success of the Central Asia Institute and the
respect Greg Mortonsen has earned from Muslim leaders. One of these is a lesson in economics.
Mortonsen has shown that making an investment in reducing poverty and ignorance may be the
most cost effective solution to terrorism. He contents that, "If we could have the $1 million for
the purchase of one Tomahawk cruise missile dropped on the Taliban converted to education
assistance, we could strike a serious blow on terrorism." Another lesson is that educating women
may be the most effective way to combat poverty and ignorance. To quote Mortonsen; "Girls
education is a mighty sword in the war on terrorism." It makes you wonder if much of the money
spent on the war on terror might have been better spent on educating women and reducing
poverty and ignorance in the places where terrorists are recruited.
Kashmir Family Aid, which fights poverty and extremism by building
schools in Kashmir.
Kashmir Family Aid is an Oregon-based nonprofit founded by author and
telecommunications executive Sam Carpenter. The group funds secular schools in the
Kashmir region in an attempt to combat poverty and, thereby, reduce the number of
people from the region entering violent radical groups. TAP spoke with Carpenter about
his goals and role in the region.
What I found was there's three types of schools. There's public schools provided by the
government and private schools -- somewhat secular schools that are funded by regular
folks over there -- and it's about a 50-50 split. Let me talk about what's taught in those
schools: English, math, science, and a reasonable amount of history, and they have
textbooks and the whole thing. But there's another kind of school over there, which I'm
certain you've heard of, called a Madrassa, and these are religious schools.
The estimates are between fifteen- and twenty-thousand of them in Pakistan alone, and
then there's a lot of them in Afghanistan. The long story short is that the kids spend 10
to 12 years they go in there at an early age, and they learn the Koran, and that's great,
but they don't learn anything else to speak of, a little bit of math, but not much. They
come out without a lot of skills. About 15 to 20 percent I estimate of those schools are
what we call militant schools where the kids are taught that, well basically, that the jihad
is against the West, and by the time they get out of those schools. who knows what
percentage, but a good number of those students are put right into the jihadranks and
given paid jobs to learn to fight, and so they're paid a very, very high wage, in our money
$200 to $300 a month, to carry machine guns and become a jihadist.
Most of the citizenry would much prefer to have the public or private or non-Madrassa-
type secular school for their children, but so many times there are no other schools
besides the religious Madrassas. These Madrassas are funded by Saudi Arabia cash, and
there's a lot of them over there. Greg Mortenson, in his book Three Cups of Tea, talks
extensively about this.
Our primary goal is to get these kids a secular education, and then we see what happens
when they get it. They're probably going to be teachers and doctors and community
people organizing people, rather than jihadists, so the primary goal is not to fight
terrorism, but that's a very important spinoff.
Most of the women over there pretty much stay at home, do not go out, especially in the
rural areas, except to get water, to take care of the fields and so forth, and you talk about
women's rights this is an amazing place in terms of improving women's rights over the
long term. Is it any of our business? I don't know, but I don't think it hurts to teach a
child; I just don't see a problem with that, and so whatever comes out of that is probably
going to be more a good thing than a bad thing. More education is a better thing.
When you walk in the schools, you see about 200 children with faces and names, and
you realize you can do this 200 children at a time, and so instead of looking at the vast
challenge over there, we are concentrating on maybe the 1,200 kids that we've been able
to directly help, and we're just going to try to expand that number over time.
One of the biggest problems we have over there is the corruption of the local officials,
and I have been repeatedly petitioned to give the money to the government and let them
hand it out. It's incredibly corrupt; that money would never get to the children, and
because I insist on paying the teachers in cash and helping the school administrators in
cash, we're not real popular over there with the local government officials.
It’s an interesting question; it's kind of a love-hate relationship. You talk to the average
Pakistani, they don't like America at all, but if you talk to them on a one-on-one level,
they like Americans. You get that argument all over the world. "We don't like your
government and your policies but we like you people," and I think that's probably pretty
true. The government that is in power right now, it's an odd government in the sense
that it's less religiously fundamentally driven than it was before, and yet it is in disarray;
it's very much in disarray. They can't handle what's happening in their northwest
territories. The United States keeps pumping cash into the place because it's an ally.
There's so much corruption, you don't know which way the government is going, and yet
there are these kids that need to learn, and our biggest problem are the adults over there
and getting the money to the kids and trying to figure out what's going to happen next.

Fighting terrorism by education:

The third incident and the most severe took place in New York City and
in Washington D.C. in September, 11, 2001. The terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, and
the Pentagon, causing the two towers of the World Trade Center to be obliterated from the face of
the earth, millions of dollars in damage, and killing almost three thousands civilians. The terrorists
were killed in the attack and none from the nineteen hijackers was arrested.
We realize that in the first and the third case, the terrorists were
immigrants from the Middle East, born and raised overseas. In the second and the fourth case, the
terrorists were born, raised, and educated in the United States. They are Americans.
After September 11th attack, Congress had to take new measures of
home security to protect home from any further terrorist attacks.
We need to increase home security for our safety and the welfare of the generations to come. Yet
we need to preserve the human rights and individual
liberty which are guaranteed by the constitution to every person living in America either a citizen or
non-citizen.
Human rights are the ability of people to live with dignity and freedom, to have the power in the
choices that matter to them, so long as those choices do not
infringe on the rights of others. They are called rights precisely because they
can not be discarded when times get tough or when circumstances become
difficult. We believe we have these rights by virtue of being humans.
Mary Robinson, the former United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said: “the only
long term guarantor of security against such violence is through respect for human rights and
humanitarian laws. The best defense to
human rights are the prevention of their abuse and erosion through ignorance.
Loren Craner, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human right and labor said: “our
governments should not use the need to combat terrorism as a legitimate reason to ignore human
rights. The legitimate and necessary pursuit of security does not allow us or our government to
trample on the rights of our fellow men.
President Bush and Secretary of State Collin Powell made it very clear that the United States
does not and will not condemn a whole nation or a whole religion because some of them commit
terrorist acts.Yet, there are some cases when human rights were violated through false or
misleading information given by the public. These incidents took place right after September the
11th attack, I will mention some of them in the following paragraph;
1- In one of the hotels, the hotel staff falsely listed a radio as being from the room of an Arab
person, and investigator missed the fact that the radio was claimed by a private pilot who had been
in the room directly below the accused Arab. The hotel employee changed his story from finding
the radio in a locked safe with the first person’s passport to finding it on a table. It seems that an
innocent person caught in improbable circumstances because the hotel employee lied and
misinformed the police about the location of the radio and to whom it belonged.
The frightening thing is how long it took the police to figure it out, and how long
the accused Arab was detained???
2- A flight attendant observed a person on the flight reading Arabic
book (what a crime). She reported the Arab reader to the security on the
flight, after investigating and detaining him for a while, they found out that he
was a secret service agent, working for the FBI, from Arab background.
The naïve flight attendant thought that every Arab is a terrorist.
3- A truck driver was detained and searched on the Canadian borders just because he is Algerian
and Algerians have been active in terrorism.
Later on he was released with an apology from the border patrol
4- A woman in Florida was eating in a fast food restaurant. Next to her, there
were three young men with beards (what a terrorist appearance)? She called 911, reporting that she
had seen three Arab terrorists. The police stopped the three men in their car, interrogated, and
detained them for a while. They were released later on, after it was found out that those three Arab
men were medical students and they were on their way to their school in Florida, and that they had
nothing to do with terrorism.
Here we find in all cases, Arab individuals were suspected just because they look Arab. To suspect
someone according to his racial profile is a waste of
time and resources. In the previous few cases, and there are much more, we find out that the
falsification of information and the racial profile by the public led to the violation of the human
rights of innocent people who had nothing to do with terrorism. They just lost some valuable time,
and they gained a reputation, through the media, of being terrorism suspects.
Now we can conclude that we can fight terrorism and preserve and respect human rights by being
very careful when we report some one as being suspicious, and by trusting and listening to our
leaders when they give instructions. The enforcement agency should be very careful when
investigating, or searching any individual.
They should not be prejudice against people from Arab or Muslim
background, and should not look at every Arab or Muslim as a potential terrorist.
There are Americans from Arab background who are doctors, engineers, computer professionals,
professors and they are very well respected and law
abiding citizens. They are all over the country. The American Muslims from
Middle Eastern background are estimated to be about 8 millions. As we have seen before that some
of the terrorists who committed horrible crimes were Americans.
They committed their terrorist acts against Americans and on American land.
Terrorism does not know nationality nor color. Jim Johns, who killed almost 1000 Americans, was
American. Timothy Mc Veigh was American. Our society has to recognize that tolerance and
respect among people are fundamental tenets of the United Nations charter and there must now
become crucial components of future security strategies. One of the major components of future
security strategy is to preserve human rights and individual liberty.
Yet there are other ways to prevent terrorism from its source, from the Middle East, and that is by
education. We must educate the Middle Eastern nations to take them from their ignorance, and put
them on the technology’s gate of the 21st century.
I see education as a very important element to any nation; an educated nation is a powerful
nation and knowledge is power. Public education is the most important; everything depends on it,
the present and the future. As initially conceived by President Thomas Jefferson, “the function of
providing all citizens with an education was to insure that all citizens within our democracy were
adequately prepared to participate in our political system. For it is the citizen who decides all
issues by electing their representatives at all levels of government. A democracy will ultimately
fail, he thought, if educated elite controls the country with narrow self-serving interests. By
providing education to all citizens, at public expense, diversity in the choice of elected officials as
well as a broad based decision-making process on issues affecting citizens would be better
assured”
In his first annual address to congress on January 8, 1790, President Washington said that
education was “the security of a free constitution” …that, through education, a free people
would know and value “their own rights”…and would be able to “discriminate the spirit of
liberty from that of licentiousness.
Good education is the only way one can break the cycle of poverty and ignorance, and to
fight terrorism. Without education, children of poor families would end up getting married at a
young age, if not get involved in criminal activities. The married, uneducated couples would then
produce offspring who would also grow up without education and the cycle of poverty would go on
and on producing terrorists who are angry at the west and the United States, thinking that the west
is responsible for their sufferings. And that is how terrorists are born, from ignorance and
misunderstanding of Islam and their views of the west and the Christian nations. Teaching the right
Islam, and taking the Middle East and the Arab nations into the gates of the 21 st century would help
a lot to decrease and to prevent terrorism from its roots. The fanatic and the terrorist groups think
that America is the enemy of Muslims and Islam, and that America is planning to destroy them. As
a Muslim, I have been living here for the past twenty years; I have not experienced any of these
claims. Let us show them the right idea of the relationship between Islam and Christianity. By
providing the Muslim and the Arab nations with the knowledge, education, and the technology of
the twenty first century, we would help them to better understand Islam and the west; then and only
then, we could uproot terrorism.
To fight terrorism from its sources, America should help to educate the third world countries and
nations, so that they can understand better and they change their views towards the west and the
Christian nations. Education is the answer to terrorism; knowledge is power and is the way to fight
terrorism everywhere on the face of the globe.